Hello! The blog is back!

I know I took an extremely long break and I apologize profusely, but due to everything that happened in 2019 (which I’ll explain below), you’ll understand why being breblogs was so difficult. Maybe someone with less of an affinity for wine and avoiding problems could’ve tackled it, but that person is not me. And, let’s face it – you came here for my problematic capricorn behavior.

But, without further ado,  here you go:

The Move:

Nobody told me moving cross-country was such a task and to be honest, I probably did the worst job doing it. Anything that I wasn’t personally attached to, I let go. I excessively purged all my D.C. belongings and packed what I could into a couple of suitcases, got on a flight and left. Of course, I brought my dog Louie with me, though.

In a sense, leaving D.C. felt almost like freeing myself. My relationships at the time were as cold as the horrible midwest winter this year so saying goodbye to a few bad friends and a relationship on the brink of toxic was the first thing I needed to do. Some people change their hair after a break up, some people pack their bags and go Gone Girl. I just needed a fresh start for myself. To this day, I’m not sure what I expected when I agreed to pursue a job on the west coast, but I don’t regret my decision.

I actually didn’t find an apartment until a couple weeks before moving. My mother made it extremely difficult to move because she inexplicably managed to find a problem with every place I found. I scoured Zillow and Apartments.com for months before I was able to find anything suitable. It’s really hard when you’ve never been to LA and you can’t visit to at least do apartment tours. Virtual tours were my best friend. At one point, I used a realtor. Eventually, I found a somewhat affordable apartment in DTLA. Location was super important since I didn’t come with a car. I needed to stay somewhere with good public transportation. (Little did I know: “good public transportation” in Los Angeles is an oxymoron. The whole metro system makes no sense.) I basically had to tell my mother, “it’s down to the wire. I leave in a couple weeks and I don’t have a place to live. Get right or get left out of the decision.”

But, like with all things, my mother was right because I HATE my apartment building. That’s a story for another time, though.

Making Friends:

They say the hardest things to find when you move cities are a new church, a good beautician, and friends. However, I got really lucky. There was a big enough group of Howard students in my class who moved to LA around the same time as me. So, I at least always knew people and I could hang out with them. And sorry to say it, I didn’t want to hang out with them all that much. Most of them, I wasn’t friends with during my undergrad years. The other people, I had just spent four years with. Also, like I said, I was saying goodbye to that part of my life.

I was so incredibly nervous about meeting new people. I had been sent several facebook group links and apps to for making friends, but they all seemed so inorganic. I didn’t go out or do anything for at least a month because I literally knew nobody outside of the Howard group.

I ended up not hanging out with the Howard crowd that much. I typically only speak to the people I was already super close to. I did go to one event that my friend from college invited me to and I met two of my closest friends in LA. Since then, we’ve been on moves. From parties to brunches and everything in between. It had to be organic though. We met, laughed, exchanged numbers and the rest is history. Then, we came to find out that our friend groups were actually close. We were all mutual friends with other people. God works in mysterious ways, I swear.

Moral of the story: put on your big girl panties and take the step. It’s definitely out of your comfort zone, but you’re already out there since you just moved away from everything you knew. You have to keep swimming. Go into deeper water. Find a wave, then ride it.

Working in LA:

Just FYI: L.A. traffic is HELL. God clearly has a problem with Los Angeles for whatever reason, if that wasn’t already seen by the random fires, earthquakes, mudslides, and hellish potholes. I live maybe 20 minutes away from my job. When I first moved and didn’t have a car, I had to walk at least a mile to and from the metro just going to work. So, my original commute was maybe two hours. When I did get my car, the commute was only cut to maybe an hour if traffic isn’t horrible. Also, gas is *hella* expensive.

I like to think of what I do as “industry adjacent.” I comment on things in the industry often, but because I’m not directly in the entertainment industry, I’m free to make honest critiques – and I like that. One thing I’ve learned is that I have no desire to be in the entertainment industry in that manner. I love what I’m doing though. Who wouldn’t want to get paid to watch TV/films and talk about it?

Something that I didn’t know I needed to learn was what I wanted my workplace personality. Growing up as a black kid in privileged PWIs, I was taught to code switch at a young age. I survived doing so for most of my formative years. Once I left high school and went to an HBCU, you relieve yourself of many of those formalities. It’s your safe haven. The place where you don’t have to worry about respectability politics playing a role on how people choose to treat you. Sure, I’d had quite a few internships, but I hadn’t had anything as in-depth as this position. Learning how I wanted to be viewed in the office, and continuously developing that image was hard. Of course, my image is still me; but, to get where you want to go, you have to play the game. And you can’t be afraid to come out swinging. Put yourself where you need to be.

With 2020 right around the corner, I’m forced to look back at 2019’s wins and losses. Los Angeles has, so far, been my biggest win (if I had graduated without debt, graduation would’ve ranked higher on the list). I’m still not sure how long I want to live here, but I’m having fun for the time being. As usual, stay tuned. There will be more posts to come, even if we don’t know when that is. xo.